Page 58 of Monsters Carve Thrones (Crowned Monsters Duet #2)

VERA LOCKE

I dragged the pastor’s corpse down the center aisle just as the choir finished their opening hymn.

Blood smeared across the floor like a red carpet beneath me.

I stepped over it in boots still slick from the kill, the weight of him nothing compared to the weight of what he’d done to children over the years.

Gasps rippled through the congregation. Mothers clutched children. Old men clutched their rosaries. And no one moved a muscle when they saw me, clad in all black with him in one hand and the wooden holy cross from his desk in the other.

I stood at the foot of the altar and let him drop. And the silence that followed? Fucking holy.

I adjusted my mask–bone-white porcelain with a painted black smile and sunken eyes, cracked along the jawline from a night I didn’t feel like forgetting.

My hood was still up, casting a shadow over the parts of my face the mask didn’t cover.

But they could see enough. My long blood-red hair, wild and unruly, stuck to the sweat at my temples.

My blue eyes, lined with smudged coal, scanned the room slowly, savoring the way those gathered shrank beneath them. They were waiting for me to speak.

So I lifted my head to the crowd, blood dripping from my sleeves, soaking the altar beneath me. “Let me ask you something about your loving god,” I began, voice low and steady. They all flinched as if surprised by the sensual huskiness in my voice. As if... it didn’t match the horror before them.

“You see me now, covered in blood. You’d call it a crime.

A sin. But me?” I shrugged. “I call it justice.” I paced slowly along the edge of the altar, each step echoing in the stunned silence.

“If a serial killer slaughtered an entire family–if he butchered the father and the son, violated the daughter and the mother before cutting their throats–and then walked into a church the very next morning, head bowed, hands folded, and begged for forgiveness…” I turned to face them fully. “Would your god forgive him?”

Pale faces stared back. A few looked horrified. Others... were actually thinking. I could see it. Doubt squirming like worms behind their eyes.

“He would, wouldn’t he? That doesn’t sit right, does it?

” I tilted my head. “Satan tortures the wicked and gets painted the villain. God forgives them and gets a stained-glass mural.” I stopped in front of the front pew, my gaze sweeping the congregation.

The men, women, and children stared up at me with terror in their eyes.

“So what does it take, hmm? A few words? A bowed head? Or perhaps I should kneel?” I moved to drop to my knees, right there on the altar steps, right in the blood.

My voice turned mockingly soft. “Oh, gracious and heavenly Father. I have sinned. But I acknowledge my wrong. I am so very sorry.”

I looked down at myself, my shirt soaked in crimson, clinging to my ribs.

“And I ask your forgiveness.” Then I smiled. It was a grin full of teeth and venom, hidden just behind the edges of my mask. “Do you forgive me, Father?”

No one answered, so I stood once again, dropping the wooden cross onto the pastor’s body.

“You see, there’s a difference between your god and me. He would’ve forgiven this man, again and again. But not me,” I chuckled. “I sent this fucker straight to hell.”

And with swift confidence, I pulled two smoke bombs from my belt and yanked the pins, tossing them into the aisles. Gas hissed and bloomed rapidly, citizens screaming and scrambling.

I turned on my heel, cloak trailing smoke and blood behind me, and disappeared out the back door. Just like every sinner they’d ever let walk free.